The city of Goodyear plans to continue participating in a West Valley Sex Trafficking Task Force with an agreement approved Sept. 14.
Goodyear City Council approved the intergovernmental agreement as part of its consent agenda, where items are approved with a single vote.
The IGA with Avondale allows the Goodyear Police Department to continue participating in the West Valley Sex Trafficking Task Force, which Goodyear has been involved in for a few years through cooperative efforts to investigate criminal offenses regarding human trafficking of adults and minors, with the goal of reducing human trafficking in the West Valley.
Chief of Police Brian Issitt spearheaded efforts to maintain partnerships and relationships to combat the crime. Last September, he presented council a funding request to support anti-human trafficking task force activities and equipment through the Arizona Department of Public Safety Anti-Human Trafficking Grant for $210,000 that did not require matching.
Ever since the Arizona Legislature enacted Senate Bill 1724 to establish the Anti-Human Trafficking Grant Fund opportunity in 2024, Goodyear has been a subrecipient of that grant through the Avondale Southwest Family Advocacy Center.
Issit explained how this offered the Special Victims Unit detectives to work more task force operations and get more training.
“The department had two Special Victims Unit detectives work 95 cases associated with human trafficking in 2024 and 2025 is on track to meet or exceed the number of cases. Currently, the detectives working anti-human trafficking investigations operate with a full-time SVU caseload resulting in overtime to support the task force operations and additional investigations,” Issit noted in 2025.
He described how detectives assigned to trafficking investigations operate with full-time caseloads unrelated to trafficking, limiting capacity, although the police department receives task force assistance from Avondale.
Likewise, the department’s current fiscal year 2027 base budget covers the Special Victims Unit detective positions in the Sex Trafficking Task Force. According to the Sept. 14 staff report, the Goodyear city manager or any designee will oversee necessary documents for the agreement with the city of Avondale’s West Valley Sex Trafficking Task Force.
Part of the agreement includes reimbursement for case follow-up related to work performed by detectives. The city of Avondale initially applied for the grant, which was awarded to fund programs, equipment and/or activities to reduce human trafficking.
Avondale formed the West Valley Human Trafficking Task Force and requested the cities of Goodyear and Buckeye along with Maricopa County to participate. The grant was extended to June 30, 2027.
The task force provides a multidisciplanary approach to the program. Those approaches include investigation, assessment, medical treatment and prosecution of child and vulnerable sexual/physical abuse, sexual abuse of adults and domestic violence cases, according to the agreement.
Each agency’s objectives include such things as identifying and locating trafficking victims, offering resources like referrals for social services, apprehending sex buyers and potential predators.
Delarita Ford can be reached at dford@iniusa.org. Submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.
Meet Delarita Delarita Ford originally joined Independent Newspapers Incorporated, now Independent Newsmedia, Inc. USA in 1997, as a general assignment reporter for the Delaware State News daily paper after starting her journalism career in Maryland in 1994, where she honed her skills by writing obituaries, covering community news from births to deaths, education to legislation and more. As a reporter, she has had the opportunity to cover sitting and former U.S. presidential visits in Baltimore, Delaware, and Arizona.
Community: One of the few seasoned journalists who still enjoys covering community events, she can be found with a reporter’s pad taking notes, her phone taking pictures while capturing life’s moments to memorialize them in print for the local newspapers and for the active-adult community where she lives. She maintains a presence with the Black media and the National Association of Black Journalists to encourage peers, socialize, and mentor younger writers.
Education: Life learner who learns from life. Aside from the collegiate education received, she got the best training from on-the-job experience with former editors who went through copy with a red pen and demanded the best writing for hard news and feature stories.
Random Fact: While a Delaware State News reporter, she could call then Sen. Joe Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, usually late at night if a quote or input was needed for varying topics, including legislation and education.
Hobbies: Adopt rescue dogs and give them a nice home. Continuously read and critique news stories from various platforms.
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